Full Description
This open access book is about the successes and challenges of the institutions and individuals who transformed early child education in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe (CEE) and Eurasia in response to the political transitions to democracy in the 1990's. Through new interviews and unpublished reports, the book gives voice to committed practitioners, researchers and policymakers who are developing inspiring services for and with young children and their families, including children who live in very difficult circumstances. They work with children affected by war, refugee families with young children, children who live in poverty, children of minorities, and children with disabilities and developmental delays. The voices of these pedagogues, experts and NGO leaders, who were supported by the Open Society Foundations Early Childhood Program, bring inspiring messages to those in the field of early childhood seeking to promote democratic values and social inclusion. The book traces the extension of programs to Africa and Asia and explores how strategies used to transform early childhood education following the political and social transformations in Europe and Eurasia can inform responsive reforms and innovations in early childhood education today and in the future.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Open Society Foundation (OSF).
Contents
Preface
Foreword
Introduction: Building Democracy Through Early Childhood Education
Part I: Why Invest in Early Childhood During a Political Transformation Process Towards Democracy?
1. 'Everything was Planned': Early Childhood Education in Former Socialist Countries before and during their Transition
2. 'It Was Just a Magic Time': Investing in Early Childhood to Build Democratic Societies
Part II: Inventing a Democratic Pedagogy
3. 'Who Says We Can't Change the World?': Implementing the Step by Step Program
4. 'The Teachers Believed in Us': How Teachers, Parents and Children Experienced the Programs
5. 'Slowly We are Getting There': Creating Opportunities for Children Experiencing Exclusion
6. 'Don't Think That it Won't Happen': Young Children in Times of War
Part III: Extending and Sustaining Democratic Pedagogy Through Civil Society Networks and Expansion to New Regions
7. 'The Seed Beneath the Snow': The Growth of National and Regional Professional Early Childhood Networks
8. 'Surprised and Thrilled': Rolling Out the Programs
Part IV: Transforming Early Childhood Education Systems
9. 'This is Yours': Successful Transformations of Early Childhood Education Systems
Conclusion
10. 'Systems Change When People Change': Lessons Learned from Long-Term Investing in Early Childhood
Annexes
Annex 1. Biographies of Interviewees and Focus Group Participants
Annex 2. Methodology: Oral History Interview and Desk Review of Evaluations, Reports and Documents
